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About

Harmless Scout Leader, also known as “Creepy Scoutmaster”, is a bait-and-switch image macro series in the style of Rasta Science Teacher, Dating Site Murderer, and Successful Black Man. It features a creepy-looking Boy Scouts scoutmaster with overlaid text on top that sounds like something a pedophile might say, but with text at the bottom finishing the sentence to reveal that he is not actually a pedophile.

Origin

On April 25th, 2011, Redditor GrandadsLadyFriend posted a thread titled “Introducing Harmless Scout Leader” with a link to the image above.[1] He created a Quickmeme page the following day.[2]

The picture originated from a January 2011 Roanoke Times article congratulating volunteer leadership among Scoutmasters and other volunteers in addition to welcoming newly inducted Eagle Scouts in the Blue Ridge Mountains Council of Virginia.[8]

Spread

The Quickmeme page has over 380 submissions, and ther have been over 60 Reddit posts as of May 11th, 2011. Derivatives have spread outside of Reddit to various websites including Memebase[3], FunnyJunk[4], Body Building Forums[5], and Tumblr.[6]

Scout Master Pedophilia

A pedophile scout master character appeared in a Saturday Night Live skit called “Canteen Boy and the Scoutmaster” seen above (originally aired February 12th, 1994). This stereotype may have been based off the long history of scouting sex abuse cases from around the world.[7]